The Conspiracy to Whitewash Hip-Hop

Rapper Iggy Azalea performs at Irving Plaza on May 5, 2014, in New York.

Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

When asked about Forbes’ claim that hip-hop is run by a white, blond, Australian rapper named Iggy Azalea, incumbent queen bee Nicki Minaj laughed
hysterically. The financial magazine may be qualified to calculate the
$250 million valuation of Nicki’s Myx Fusions Moscato wine coolers,
Nicki reasoned, but only the hip-hop community can bequeath the throne
to Iggy.

One week later, Iggy Azalea became the only
artist since the 1964 Beatles to have her first two singles occupy the
top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and the fourth female emcee to hit
No. 1 on the chart. Nicki has yet to claim the No. 1 spot.

However, the coronation of Iggy as one of the most successful rappers
in history has occurred without much support from the imagined hip-hop
community or from black people not invested in her brand. Funkmaster
Flex has called her music “trash,” and Iggy’s hit singles have received little airplay on Top 40 “urban,” hip-hop radio stations. Reviews of her album The New Classic have been lukewarm at best.Even XXL, which made her the first female inductee of the magazine’s Freshman Class, admits that the music doesn’t live up to the hype.

If Iggy isn’t a great rapper, why is she so popular? Is it her whiteness? And is her reign part of a larger industry plot to whitewash black music with the likes of Justin Timberlake and Robin Thicke?

Iggy’s meteoric rise is due, in part, to the music industry’s willingness to promote only a handful of super-sexy female artists. The twerk videos, cake Instagrams and a track literally named “P--$y”
is a recipe for profit in a hypersexist marketplace. It has worked so
well that men and women are buying tickets to Iggy concerts with the
sole purpose of feeling her booty.

But Iggy is also an heiress to white supremacy, the mix of unearned
racial privilege and racial fetish that has historically made black
music without black people big business. Her aspiration
to be like the Rolling Stones, not just tie the Beatles’ record, should
give pause: Does Iggy really want to emulate white rockers that plundered the music and swagger of black musicians like Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry?

White people do seem a little too excited about discovering
twerking and the Harlem Shake. But before we form a black-culture
militia to defend hip-hop as the last bastion of race music, it might be
worth remembering that anxiety over white appropriation of hip-hop has
been around for more than three decades.

In 1981 Debbie Harry’s “Rapture” magically became
the first “rap” song to hit No. 1 on Billboard and the first rap song
that MTV chose to air. In 1983 the plotline of Charlie Ahern’s classic
film Wild Style was driven by white downtown art collectors who
threatened to destroy the uptown graffiti scene. White emcees—besides
the Beastie Boys and 3rd Bass—were banished to the underground in the
early 1990s when Vanilla Ice almost became the “Elvis of rap.”

Everything about Eminem’s success, Harry Allen wrote (pdf), could be attributed to the power of hip-hop fused with the power of white supremacy.

Most post-Eminem talk about the problem of whiteness has been coded in conspiracy theories involving the Illuminati or the gay mafia. Hip-hop’s reigning philosopher Lord Jamar is currently using
the metaphor of white artists being guests in the house of hip-hop. If
Miley Cyrus and Macklemore keep drinking out of the milk carton and
leaving their dirty socks on the floor, black people reserve the right
to kick them out. We will see if Lord Jamar has the power to evict Justin Bieber for the n--ger jokes.

Veteran emcee Scarface is using a gentrification analogy to describe
a conspiracy to make “Elvis the face of hip-hop” within 20 years. In
the musical equivalent of an urban renewal scam, white executives have
turned the rap hood into an intellectual ghetto filled with buffoonery,
violence and drugs. Once hip-hop is near death, they will bring in white
hipster rappers to “revitalize” and “save” the culture. Black rappers,
Scarface tweeted, could become the hip-hop generation’s Chuck Berrys.

If there is a conspiracy to whitewash hip-hop, Scarface is right to
point the finger at the executives that ultimately profit from
Macklemore being marketed as hip-hop’s Great White Hope, or New Zealand artist Lorde being allowed
to sing that hip-hop is a bunch of black people ranting about gold
teeth, Maybachs and diamonds. It is time to start “CEO beef” with the
music executives and “culture vultures” behind the scenes, according to
the outspoken Dame Dash.

Viewed within this broader history of whiteness and hip-hop, it
should be no surprise that Iggy Azalea is being viewed with some
distrust. We will know in 20 years if Scarface and other defenders of
hip-hop are correct about the whitening of hip-hop and whether Iggy is
really a carpetbagger intent on exploiting the culture.

Until then, the safest bet is that Iggy is the lighter counterpart to
Nicki Minaj, an artist with an uncanny gift to make infectious
“hip-pop” anthems for the summer and to profit from the racism and
sexism of the music industry. Like Nicki, she will be laughing all the
way to the bank. Depending on your point of view, that makes Iggy either
the essence of real hip-hop hustle or more proof that hip-hop as
meaningful black music is almost dead.

Travis L. Gosa, Ph.D., is assistant professor of Africana studies
at Cornell University, where his research focuses on racial inequality
and African-American youths. He has written for Ebony, the Chronicle of
Higher Education, Fox News and a number of academic journals.

I agree with the article. Yes, that is the way of the music industry.
Remove the offensive black face and replace it with a white face to make
it more digestible for those that are offended by the black face. Rap
had a lot of potential for black people, then it was restructured to
where you had to coon, cuss and disrespect to make a buck. I remember
when Dr. Dre came out with 'Been there, Done that', he announced that he
wanted to make music that was for all ages and all audiences and the
music industry did not support his non-gangsta rap album and he was like
eff it, i have to feed my family and went full force producing negative
music that he knew that would sell b/c it was an easy formula to
follow.

If you see the move Twenty Feet From Stardom, you will see how the white artists study and replicate the black style to make hits. We all know that Iggy is copying Da Brat's flow 100%.

When it is all said and done, Eminem will be known as the
greatest rapper of all time b/c of his bleached blond buzz cut and his
white skin only. He already has been given that crown in certain circles
though we all know that he isnt even in the top 5 in the average black
persons ranking of rappers. SMH.

Ahh, I just saw the mention of Dame Dash. He most definitely is an advocate of unveiling the truth of the systematic plots against blacks on the executive level. He frequently breaks down Lyor Cohen's sinister role on his IG.

definitely has. Elvis stole the song, 'you aint nothing but a hound dog' from a black woman and stole the hip gyration from black Memphis singers and made himself the biggest legend in American music with the help of the white music machine backing him.

I agree with the article. Yes, that is the way of the music industry. Remove the offensive black face and replace it with a white face to make it more digestible for those that are offended by the black face. Rap had a lot of potential for black people, then it was restructured to where you had to coon, cuss and disrespect to make a buck. I remember when Dr. Dre came out with 'Been there, Done that', he announced that he wanted to make music that was for all ages and all audiences and the music industry did not support his non-gangsta rap album and he was like eff it, i have to feed my family and went full force producing negative music that he knew that would sell b/c it was an easy formula to follow.

If you see the move Twenty Feet From Stardom, you will see how the white artists study and replicate the black style to make hits. We all know that Iggy is copying Da Brat's flow 100%.

When it is all said and done, Eminem will be known as the greatest rapper of all time b/c of his bleached blond buzz cut and his white skin only. He already has been given that crown in certain circles though we all know that he isnt even in the top 5 in the average black persons ranking of rappers. SMH.

So fancy is the first iggy song I heard and I kept trying to figure out if brat was rapping and iggy was singing

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